


Compass

by misskatieleigh



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-19
Updated: 2008-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misskatieleigh/pseuds/misskatieleigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John Sheppard woke up for the first time, he was flying – screaming across East Asia at Mach 2, pulling 9 <i>g</i>-s in an F-16 as easy as breathing, clear blue spread out above him like a canopy. The whole world caught in a stuttering pause while he let the sky take him home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compass

**Author's Note:**

> moving old stuff from LJ, sorry if you read this ages ago

When John Sheppard woke up for the first time, he was flying – screaming across East Asia at Mach 2, pulling 9 _g_ -s in an F-16 as easy as breathing, clear blue spread out above him like a canopy. The whole world caught in a stuttering pause while he let the sky take him home.

He felt hollow inside.

Everything slotted together, jigsaw pieces cut with exacto knife precision inside his head. That was the problem really, how perfectly it all fit. Name age rank mother father country duty, every base he’d stepped foot on since he figured out how to walk, every girl he’d fucked since he figured out what to do with his dick – since he figured out how to make his body work _for_ him instead of against him. Everything was there, just a shimmer of light curling around the edges to say no, no this isn’t right. _Come home._

Major John Sheppard (rank confirmed) flew back to base. His hands shook when he landed, some shimmer tugging him in a different direction. He looked up at the bright blue sky and pushed it down, drowned the light in alcohol and the first pair of legs that opened to welcome him – smooth soft skin under his hands, but even that wasn’t right – and kept his thoughts to himself. He let the days run over him, cool trickle of water down his spine, time sliding forward. He made himself forget what it meant to be hollow.

It didn’t help.

*****

When he saw the man’s face from across the mess hall the first time he didn’t give it a second thought. New recruits all the time, new faces bound to have the same shape, the same wide blue eyes as someone else. It wasn’t until he looked up the second time (clear blue skies, all your worries float away), that he realized it was something more.

“Do I know you?”

“I was hoping you might. But, maybe not just yet.”

“What does that mean? What’s your rank soldier?”

The man’s eyes fell, crooked mouth thinning when John wanted to find a smile. “Call me Rodney,” he said. “Don’t forget.”

When John looked up – crisp white walls, military order around him – he was alone again. The food on his tray tasted like dust. Like Afghanistan and broken promises and disobedience that should have cost him his career but instead gave him the same thing day in, day out, clear blue skies that never broke through to the deep black of space, _come home_ curling around the back of his skull like a question.

A man with the answer in a smile that he couldn’t taste.

*****

The second time he saw the man was on his morning run, five miles out and five miles back, just to feel the burn in his lungs – just to feel. The man – Rodney, his mind supplied – was standing on the side of the road, arms curled around himself against the cold. John stopped, a smile as his barricade against the words that threatened to spill from him like a flood.

“Hey, I remember you.”

“Good. Tell me who I am.”

“You’re Rodney. From the mess hall the other day.”

Rodney’s head dipped down, shoulders tight against the wind. “No. I’m sorry.”

John closed his eyes, the words a thick tumble of ink swelling on his tongue.

“I...”

Rodney was gone again.

John ran until his legs stopped moving, spilled words that meant nothing to this mind into the grass with his breakfast.

“How do I get home?”

The grass didn’t have an answer.

He dreamt of bright blue eyes, a shimmer of blue and green glowing around him – warmer than any house he’d called home with a teenage voice and an attitude bigger than his skin. He dreamt of hands, smooth and large, of calloused fingertips brushing across his face, cool palm on his cheek, of a warm crooked mouth slipping a smile into his bones.

He woke up alone, wet briefs clinging to his hips and a lingering shimmer breaking though. _Come home._

He only wished he knew how to get there.

*****

When John saw Rodney for the third time he was flying. Ten thousand feet up, Atlantic Ocean rolling out white on blue below and a man who didn’t come up with him at his back.

“I’m losing my mind, I think.”

“Quite possible. Have you remembered me yet?”

“I want to. I want to remember. Can’t you just tell me, Rodney? I had a dream about you.”

“Yes, I know, that’s somewhat embarrassing. I can’t tell you though, you have to find your way home without me.”

“But you’re the only reason I want to go there. I feel like I’m missing something, like this is some grand cosmic joke where I’ll wake up and this will all be a dream, a test in some lab a million years away.”

“Well, you have to trust your gut sometimes.”

“I think I love you.”

The plane landed with one man on board.

*****

When John opened his eyes for the second time he was back on Atlantis, blue green shimmer curling around him like a blanket. Rodney was asleep in the chair next to him, fingers curled around his hand like a lifeline.

“Rodney.”

Rodney smiled, shoulder shifting closer. “Good to have you home.”

 


End file.
